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How I “Unknowingly” Became a Dairy Farmer’s Wife, Part 1

In the “About” section of my blog, I mentioned that I “unknowingly” married a dairy farmer. It’s completely true. But, it’s no “I drank too much in Vegas and woke up the next day in the loft of a dairy barn” story. It’s a little more complicated than that.

I was 18 when I married the farmer. (I called him by no other name than Leslee back then.) He was not a farmer, but a farm kid who had been raised on a dairy. He decided after high school that although he was proud of his roots, he didn’t want to be a dairy farmer. He wanted to make his own road. How we met and fell in love is a story for another day. More like a book. Who knows, someday maybe I’ll be inspired to write it. There was a very difficult tragedy for us both involved and I don’t like to write about “heavy” subject matter on my blog. So, I’ll start at the part where an 18 year old girl, with a very good head on her shoulders, (I might add) marries a young man who treats her like she’s his princess.

The farmer had already established himself in the city, so I had a home to move into when we came back from our honeymoon. A couple months later, I started my freshman year of college at Missouri State University while he worked full-time as the foreman at a local cabinet shop. He enjoyed his job, and being the big nerd that I am, I loved school.

I had big dreams back then. I knew what I wanted to major in before I even graduated from high school and I never strayed from it. I liked money, I wanted a big pat on the back when I made someone else’s money work for them, and I really wanted to wear pretty clothes (i.e., I needed a reason to wear heels.) I majored in Finance and I was really good at it. I double-minored in Spanish (loved it) and Insurance and Risk Management (hated every dadgum’ minute I spent in those classes.) I thought it would make me more marketable. After 4 years, I graduated and was set to take on the corporate finance world.

This is where things got dicey. See, I graduated in 2008. This was the worst possible year I could have graduated for the career path I wanted to take. When the housing market collapsed and the banking world fell apart. Even banks in our midwestern city were scared and had put hiring freezes into place. There were many finance majors looking for jobs and no one to hire them. I fell into this category. So, I continued to work as a teller at the bank I had worked at all through college while I actively looked for a career stepping stone.

I wasn’t seeing much of the farmer at this point in our story. His father had been diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer and he spent most weekends at the farm doing everything he could to help his parents. While watching his family suffer, he also knew that things were going downhill fast at the cabinet shop with no new houses and very few remodels. People were understandably scared and started saving every penny they earned.

The farmer’s dad continued to grow weaker and decided that the only thing to do was sell out. The farmer watched as his family’s beloved Jerseys were herded onto a trailer and transported to a new home. I sympathized for my husband and his family, but I couldn’t really relate how much it hurt to do that ’til now. The Krider dairy farm had seemingly reached its end.